How the external material informs this edition
This is original teaching material organized around the existing 12-lecture FORC syllabus. It is not a transcript, copy, or official adaptation of a CMU or MIT course. The public course indexes, linked notes, and documentation were used for topic alignment and conventions. The four supplied playlists are companion viewing. Their complete video contents have not been independently reviewed or transcribed, and no video timestamps are asserted.
The source links are recorded with an access date of 11 September 2026. Online notes and stable documentation can change. Preserve a release tag or commit when citing this edition.
CMU dynamics
CMU 16-715 and CMU dynamics notebooks support the compact simulation and dynamics recap in lectures 1–5. They are companions, not a second dynamics course inside FORC.
CMU optimal control and reinforcement learning
CMU optimal control connects local feedback, optimal control, and learning. CMU 16-745 index is a dated lecture index, with topics including LQR, MPC, trajectory optimization, rotations, and quadrotors. FORC lectures 6–8 develop local control and predictive control; lectures 9–11 introduce learning.
The current course index includes multiple editions. Topic alignment here does not imply that lecture numbering matches every linked playlist.
MIT Underactuated Robotics
MIT Underactuated videos accompanies Tedrake, Underactuated Robotics. The specific MIT LQR, MIT trajectory optimization, and MIT multibody dynamics chapters connect to the corresponding derivations and exercises. We translate their notation into the MuJoCo contract rather than mixing conventions silently.
MIT Robotic Manipulation
MIT Manipulation videos is Robotic Manipulation, Fall 2023. MIT Manipulation notes and MIT differential IK support differential kinematics, imitation, and policy-learning context for FORC lectures 3 and 9–10.
MuJoCo and other algorithms
MuJoCo computation defines the engine's force decomposition; MuJoCo API supplies function-level links. MuJoCo MJX supports the optional batching material. Pinocchio algorithms and Drake hydroelastic are optional comparison references, not required engines for the core labs.
Rights and reuse
New notes, code, and slides are authored within this repository and retain its existing Apache-2.0 license. Linked lectures, notes, images, and code remain governed by their owners' licenses. This edition does not redistribute external slides, transcripts, figures, or notebook code. A citation is attribution, not permission to copy an entire source.
Each module lists its relevant references in module.yml. Use the references page for the complete linked records, and the citation page to cite this repository.